Week ending 15th June - Training: Actual vs Plan

I rode the following between 9th and 15th June:

Tuesday: Commute to and from work. 36 miles, 2 hours
Thursday: Commute to and from work. 36 miles, 2 hours
Friday: Hilly Ilkley to Lofthouse. 26 miles, 1.5hrs
Sunday: Hilly Lofthouse to Ilkley. 26 miles, 1.5hrs

Total: 124 miles, 7 hours.

(TDF fever is growing and this campsite owner/farmer was getting in the spirit at Lofthouse in Nidderdale!)

The June intermediate training plan says 8.5 hours required so I'm just behind with the 7 hours done but not by much. I actually thought I'd be a long way off the plan (having not looked at the plan for a couple of months) so I'm pleasantly surprised to see the plan isn't asking for 32 hours this week.

I plan to ride to work three days this week and the TDF Stage 2 on Sunday with Al. That should be about 14 hours in the saddle hopefully which will be well over the 10 in the plan. Might try and do a Saturday ride too to ensure I get the all important back to back mileage in.

Training plan link
June Intermediate Plan Link

Dealing with the mental challenge of cycling 1000 miles in 9 days

Alongside the physical training I'm doing for LEJOG, I also need to consider the mental side of things too.

I've currently got three plans for tackling that.

The first is to ride through all weathers in the hope that I become mentally tougher by riding through the hard times as well as the good. I tend not to be a fair weather cyclist anyhow but there are occasions where I make preference based on the forecast. I'm doing my best to use the forecast as a heads up on what I'm about to ride in rather than a tool for planning rides, although this only really applies to riding solo. I don't want to ruin someone else's day intentionally!

The second is to get into the head of a long distance cyclist to get a feel for how they prepare and deal with it. To do this I have just bought MarkBeaumont's book The Man Who Cycled the World (ok I'm not cycling the world unsupported but everyone has to start somewhere!).

So far so good, I've got to Poland and it's an engaging read and an incredible challenge. It's useful to read about the emphasis he put on sports massages, something I've not really considered yet other than knowing they have massage tents on Ride Across Britain. Might need to look into this during my training too.

The third is to stretch myself to find out what I'm capable of. This means back to back rides and long days in the saddle. I did my first major, and by major I mean over 30 miles per day for 2 days, back to back last month with this 2 day 187 mile ride to Scotland. I've also done a couple of 100 milers in the last two months, ridden 270 miles in one week last week (a HUGE achievement for me) and am planning to do my longest ride ever on Sunday at 140 miles which includes cycling to and from the start.

I'm no expert on this by any means and the ultimate test will always be LEJOG in September but so far this feels about right.

Training - how do you know if you've peaked too early?

Al said to me recently careful you don't peak too soon. This has been in the back of my mind occasionally but I thought more about it this morning on my ride in to work after having done the two big back to back rides this weekend.

The question has to be, how do you know when you've peaked? I think the answer to that must lie within the training plan and the training goal but as I've never trained for an event this big before this concept is new territory for me.

I'm assuming that you set a training goal and work up to it, and your peak is when you hit that goal. If you hit that goal early then you'll either peak too early or need to set another more challenging goal.

First issue with that theory then is the training plan I have is a monthly one, so I can't see what the peak actually looks like in August. I think I need to try and get a copy of all the months so I can see what I should be aiming at. I can then decide if the intermediate plan is right for me and I'll know what the peak is.

Second issue is that I'm following the training plan very loosely anyway, working more on the advice given to me about just riding my bike as much as I can. "The more miles you put in beforehand the easier the event will be" were the words. This method doesn't have a training peak, other than perhaps the event itself, so peaking for me is the actual event and anything less that 1000 miles in 9 days is still building up to it.

I need to learn more about this area but I'm not going to loose any sleep over it, I'm just going to ride as much as I can and that philosophy is definitely making me stronger and quicker at the moment, even with my laptop stuffed down the back of my bibshorts on tonight's commute! That's because I forgot my rucksack in case you were wondering...